The pangolin and her baby left the battlefield with the government troops. In the foreseeable future the little one would be raised and brainwashed by humans, and the nuclear-grade pangolin would become one more of humanity's guardian beasts.

Shen Cong didn't study the two pangolins himself, but he got the details from the government side anyway.

The nuclear-grade pangolin had entered the Lv4 — Nebula Era, and its intelligence was rising fast. Haltingly, it told its story. Sure enough, it had been born in the Huoshan Oasis. It was the super-heavyweight Iron-Eater that the Anhui Provincial Garrison's troops had once seen. A stroke of luck had carried it all the way to nuclear-grade.

Later it met another pangolin. They mated, the other one slipped quietly away, and the nuclear-grade pangolin found herself pregnant. The little one was the result.

She had wandered with the baby ever since, mostly in the great stretch of oasis jungle between Huoshan, Macheng and Yingshan.

Then, out of nowhere, the locust swarm fixed its sights on her, and that was what had sent her running for her life.

Whether this swarm was the same Disaster Locusts that had nearly wiped out an army back then was still to be looked into.

Shen Cong was investigating the locusts himself.

He was paying close attention to the green light from their mouthparts. The three live specimens he had caught were there both to show him how the green light was released and what it was, and to be interrogated.

The swarm had an intelligence of its own, and a high one. Their IQ was even a little above the spirit-monkeys'.

A few of Shen Cong's methods later, the three locusts had told him everything they knew, holding nothing back. Their IQ might have risen, but at heart they were still contemptible bugs. Loyalty meant nothing to them, let alone dying before they'd give in.

"Eat!"

"We're born eating. We eat everything!"

"No ruler drives us. We just live together, hunt together, work as a team."

"The swarm grows fast. When we eat everything in one place, we…